Thomas Hodgkin and Benjamin Harrison: crisis and promotion in academia.

On the night of 15 June 1837 Dr. James Cholmeley, Physician to Guy's Hospital, died. The ultimate consequences of this event were only slightly less far-reaching for Dr. Thomas Hodgkin than for his late colleague. Dr. Cholmeley's death created an opening at Guy's Hospital to which Dr. Thomas Addison was almost certain to be appointed. The vacancy created by Addison's advancement was for an appointment as Assistant Physician that was coveted by Thomas Hodgkin, but he was destined not to receive it. Given his medical eminence, it has never been entirely clear why Hodgkin was rejected. Correspondence has been made available to us that provides some understanding of what occurred. Few eponyms in medicine have been as durable as the one which bears the name of Thomas Hodgkin. The eponym, coined initially by Samuel Wilks, was attached to the unusual gross appearance oflymph nodes in certain fatal disorders, and it is a tribute to Hodgkin's perception that later microscopic study ofthe original case material showed that many of the cases were indeed those of an unusual lymphoid disorder whose nature and etiology are still uncertain.1 Wilks, as a pathologist and historian at Guy's Hospital, later recognized similar cases and had the uncommon generosity of spirit to record that there were earlier descriptions by Hodgkin ofwhat appeared to be the same disease. Wilks, with Bettany, wrote a history of Guy's Hospital2 and provided many details about Hodgkin. Wilks' biographical sketch indicated that despite Hodgkin's evident accomplishments he was not promoted to Assistant Physician following the death of Dr. Cholmeley and that shortly thereafter he moved to St. Thomas' Hospital where he was active in delivering medical care to the underprivileged and continued to publish from his vast store ofmedical experience. However, much of the remaining thirty years of his life was devoted to social reform, geographical explorations (he was for many years secretary to the Royal Geographical Society), ethnology, and the problem of slavery and the colonization of freed slaves in Africa; he played an important role in the fates of Sierra Leone and Liberia. He was a member of the first Senate of the University ofLondon, which was the first university in England that granted degrees to